CIDCO wants to see your face

City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd. (CIDCO) is not taking any chances after an incident on December 4 last year when Milind Bagul, an employee was caught red-handed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau for taking Rs 1 lakh. Thirty-three CCTV cameras with Face Recognition Software will be installed in the CIDCO building in the coming weeks to keep a watch on who enters and leaves the building at all times. The cameras will count the number of people and frequency of their visits to the CIDCO office.

“We are in final stages of discussion and have decided that CCTV cameras will be installed in lobbies and corridors of the building soon. We have decided to use facial recognition software in these CCTV cameras as it would be a difficult and tedious process to keep a watch on those who visits CIDCO regularly with just manual supervision,” said a CIDCO official, who requested anonymity.

If the facial recognition software finds that a person is regularly visiting a particular official at CIDCO, an alert will be raised by the system, which will help to single out the person in question. “All CCTV cameras will be connected to a control room where recordings will be stored. If the software finds that a person has been visiting regularly to any specific official, the software will send an alert to us. We will also be feeding our employees’ data into the software. The alert data will then be sent to respective authorities to take an appropriate action,” said the official. Tanaji Satre, managing director of CIDCO said “It is necessary to know who is visiting the CIDCO office regularly. It would be helpful in checking illegal activities by agents in the CIDCO office.”